272380 - Bookmark file duplicating, XUL.mfl file size increasing

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Clinton Labombard]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

When looking up where Firefox stores it's bookmark file I came across a
horrifying discovery: 46MB worth of duplicated bookmark files.  In fact, even
after deleting entries, this size doesn't go down, but rather, it increases. 
There are hundreds of files in that directory now.

I uninstalled Firefox, deleted that directory, then reinstalled.  I went through
the same process (see below) and while no files replicated, I did notice the
file size for 'XUL.mfi' was increasing with this operation.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. bookmark a page
2. delete the bookmark
Actual Results:  
(see description)

Comment 1

[Clinton Labombard]

This duplication is happening with both Firefox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7.3 from the
Mozilla disk.

When I open the applications they duplicate the current bookmark file once or
twice and then slowly add more of them.  It's acting like a worm virus.

Comment 2

[OstGote!]

Is your bookmarks.html file write-protected or hidden?

Comment 3

[Clinton Labombard]

Problem found and solved, at least on my end.

I deleted all the bookmark files, including the backup file.  Then I closed
Mozilla (and deleted any further repeats) and opened it again.  Bookmarks were
cleared, so I opened the bookmark manager and imported the old bookmark file
from disk.  No further problems.

The problem was caused from my habit of saving favorites (from IE) and bookmarks
to CD.  You see, with IE all I have to do is paste over the favorites folder
with the archive from CD, but if you do that with Mozilla it causes the problem
I've described.  Every few seconds Mozilla or Firefox will duplicate the
corrupted bookmark file and pretty soon you've got hundreds of them.

Although this /is/ solved for me, as there are quite a few IE users who do that
with their favorites folders, this problem really should be corrected.

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Hrm, I wonder how IE handles favourites that are marked read-only?  I guess if
you're just adding bookmarks, that wouldn't be an issue.

Unfortunately, if the file IS marked read-only, the best we can do is alert the
users about it.  We can't override the OS filesystem and overwrite the file.

Comment 5

[Clinton Labombard]

Since IE favorites are all seperate shortcut link files, there's little problem.
 If the file is marked read-only and you attempt to modify it, the OS stops you
in your tracks.

I would expect Mozilla/Firefox to handle the same situation by not copying the
bookmark file, but instead prompting the user when a modification is attempted
that the file is read-only and needs to be unmarked.  That's an easy solution on
par with how IE handles it.  After all, it's just a file.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.

Comment 8

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs, filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change